Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, New Edition

Kirk Savage

Princeton University Press, Jul 31, 2018 - History - 296 pages

A history of U.S. Civil War monuments that shows how they distort history and perpetuate white supremacy

The United States began as a slave society, holding millions of Africans and their descendants in bondage, and remained so until a civil war took the lives of a half million soldiers, some once slaves themselves. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves explores how the history of slavery and its violent end was told in public spaces—specifically in the sculptural monuments that came to dominate streets, parks, and town squares in nineteenth-century America. Looking at monuments built and unbuilt, Kirk Savage shows how the greatest era of monument building in American history took place amid struggles over race, gender, and collective memory. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves probes a host of fascinating questions and remains the only sustained investigation of post-Civil War monument building as a process of national and racial definition. Featuring a new preface by the author that reflects on recent events surrounding the meaning of these monuments, and new photography and illustrations throughout, this new and expanded edition reveals how monuments exposed the myth of a "united" people, and have only become more controversial with the passage of time.

Contents

• CHAPTER ONE Introduction: 3
• CHAPTER TWO Exposing Slavery: 21
• CHAPTER THREE Imagining Emancipation: 52
• CHAPTER FOUR Freedoms Memorial: 89
• CHAPTER FIVE Slaverys Memorial: 129
• CHAPTER SIX Common Soldiers: 162
• CHAPTER SEVEN Epilogue: 209
• Notes: 215
• Index: 259
• Illustration Credits: 271

About the author

Kirk Savage is the William S. Dietrich II Professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Monument Wars: Washington D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape (Princeton) and the editor of The Civil War in Art and Memory.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, New Edition
• Author: Kirk Savage
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2018
• ISBN: 0691184526, 9780691184524
• Length: 296 pages
• Subjects: Architecture / Buildings / Landmarks & Monuments; Architecture / History / General; Art / History / Modern (late 19th Century to 1945); History / United States / 20th Century; Political Science / Civil Rights; Social Science / Black Studies (Global)